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Maryland education leaders summarize major education bills from the 2025 legislative session
Summary
MSDE staff briefed the State Board on April 30 about key education measures from the 2025 Maryland legislative session, including HB 504 (teacher workforce measures and community schools expansion), new reporting and task-force mandates on absenteeism, child care analysis, and language-access requirements.
Maryland State Department of Education leaders summarized outcomes from the 2025 General Assembly session for the State Board of Education on April 30, identifying key enacted measures affecting teacher workforce policy, community schools, early childhood regulation and reporting requirements.
High-level bills and impacts: MSDE described the governor’s Education Excellence Act (HB 504) as including three teacher workforce components — a funded ‘grow-your-own’ grant program to expand local teacher pipelines, a statewide recruitment campaign and relocation incentives to attract out-of-state teachers — and expanded community-school funding with county-level plan flexibility and evaluation requirements. The department said one education coach program (academic excellence statewide coaching) was authorized but not funded in the current budget.
Other enacted measures: staff outlined several additional laws that will affect department work, including (a) a statutory requirement for MSDE to study and set childcare staff-to-child ratio authority (departmental regulatory update forthcoming), (b) HB 879 creating a chronic-absence task force and toolkit (discussed separately at the meeting), (c) requirements to assess school-health personnel levels with the Department of Health, and (d) a language-access planning obligation for state agencies with biennial reporting requirements.
Implementation notes: MSDE said it will integrate the new statutory duties into regulatory workplans, finalize grant program specifications and coordinate county-level community-school strategies, and produce required reports (childcare ratio analysis, mixed-delivery pre-K follow-up report and chronic-absence toolkits) on legislated timetables. Several programs requested in testimony were not funded in the final state budget given the constrained fiscal environment.
What the board was told: MSDE emphasized it followed the board’s legislative platform in selecting positions during the session, and that the enacted statutes will now move to operational work tracked by the department and presented back to the board for implementation guidance and rulemaking where needed.
